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Farmers' markets punch above their weight

Farmers selling their produce through a farmers market can generate an income off the farm and offer consumers an alternative buying experience.

Laurissa Smith

Tasmania's only Slow Food University graduate has returned from a year abroad, and has started a new farmers market on the north west coast.

Lee-Anne Mundy is a dietician based in Burnie, but she went to the north of Italy to learn more about the slow food movement and the relationship between farmers and consumers.

Ms Mundy says she went to Italy because she wanted a new way to talk about food.

"I spent about 13 months in a very small town in the north of Italy called Bra, which is the home and the birthplace of the slow food movement," she said.

"It had a specialty of ecology and sustainability."

The Cradle Coast Farmers Market will take place in Ulverstone for the first time this Sunday. Ms Mundy says she wants the new market to have a focus quality and says there are strict rules on who will be allowed to sell produce.

"We're operating under the guidelines of the Australian Farmers Market Association," she said.

"The main issue is that the producer has to be there at the stall, or the person has to be involved in the production process.

"The main thing is you can come down and chat to whoever grows, sows, rears, catches or value-adds to whatever produce we have here, and find out all about it."

Many in the community don't see farmers markets as convenient, and the prices are generally more expensive than supermarkets, but Ms Mundy says the quality of the produce on offer is superior.

"It's about people valuing what we have here," she said.

"We're providing that direct link between the customer and the farmer so a) you know you're getting a fair price as the consumer, and b) the farmer gets a fair price for the work he puts in to provide you that product."

Nick Towle was involved with the establishment of the Burnie Farmers Market a decade ago and says farmers markets represent more than a passing concern for the larger retail chains.

"In the first few months we were actually approached by one of the larger retailers, the larger supermarkets here, expressing concern about the sort of impact we were actually having on retail sales locally," he said.

"The specific concerns were that they'd identified a drop in their profits on the days that the market was operating, and the concern was if that continues to be a trend, then there was worry around employment."

But Mr Towle rejected concerns raised by the supermarket retailer, saying the flow-on effects of micro industry vastly outweigh the benefits afforded by major retail chains.

"The concerns that were raised were that these retailers were employing local people, thereby supporting the local community," he said.

"But I think if you look at both sides of that equation, what the farmers market is doing is in fact employing local people, but probably with a greater benefit for the local economy.

"Even if the employment opportunities were the same, the actual economic multiplier of having local ownership through a farmers market is actually greater than from a large retail side," he said.

And Ms Mundy is hoping to win over the supermarket crowd.

"People value what we have," she said.

"We can say that what we're selling is from Tasmania, and a lot of it at the moment is from the north west coast."